Male Connections Evolve One Way, Women's Relationships Another. Is It Time to Stop Trying to Push Men Into Women?
It's beneficial to talk. That's what men are repeatedly instructed, from sources ranging from mental health campaigners to the women they live with. They remain puzzled by the common male propensity to spend an entire evening in the pub with longstanding friends, yet return with no insight about the significant events in each other's lives. What might they possibly be doing, all that while? How come they didn't they inquired how X is handling his breakup, or how Y is dealing with the loss of his father?
For women, whose own friendships often center on an intimate and detailed knowledge of each other's private feelings, this style of male intimacy—based on seemingly avoiding meaningful conversation—can seem oddly empty and sad. It's no surprise, one might think, that more than 25% of UK men report having zero close friends; that male loneliness is widespread; that many hesitate to see a doctor until seriously ill; that male suicide rates repeatedly outstrip female ones; and that many middle-aged men, in particular, appear chronically angry for unspoken reasons. Bottling everything up benefits nobody.
Rethinking the Value of Silent Friendship
However, as per anthropologist Thomas Yarrow, this view may undervalue the strengths of the resilient and silent friendship. Professor Yarrow, based at Durham University, was studying volunteers at a heritage steam railway in the north of England when he was impressed with the closeness developed among these mostly older men. His lengthy study has been distilled into a paper arguing that, particularly for men brought up in an era of the emotional restraint, the value of friendships built around shared hobbies—"shared activity, often in comfortable silence"—may be underappreciated.
This muted form of friendship "is not deficient or anachronistic, it's just distinct," Yarrow suggests.
Granted, this can seem disconcertingly similar to how toddlers play—alongside each other rather than engaging with each other. But Yarrow's argument is evident: simply due to the fact that it's not your preferred version of friendship doesn't imply it lacks value. Maybe we should let these men in peace with their trains, golf, or vintage auto projects—whichever pursuit allows them to spend time in the company of others who also value less talk.
Past Words: The Unspoken Dialect of Care
Thankfully, Yarrow is explicitly not arguing that showing emotion is harmful, nor advocating for a return to the past. Instead, he highlights that emotionally expressive talk isn't for everyone, and that deeper things may be occurring beneath the surface of apparently reserved friendships. Could he be right?
As a woman's viewpoint, one is obviously no expert on male-to-male dialogue. But professional observation indicates that while men may be hesitant at first to discuss sensitive matters, once they begin, they can be remarkably forthright. A absence of visible emotion should not be equated with a lack of feeling altogether.
Furthermore, while younger men raised in a more emotionally open culture may be better at articulating feelings, traditional men are not at all incapable of it. Repackage vulnerable emotions as acceptable "political opinions" or "club allegiance," and many men will readily express frustration, yearning, discontent, or satisfaction for hours.
The most notable about Yarrow's railway volunteers is that, for all their horror of discussing feelings, they nonetheless found ways to express what looks remarkably like concern and solidarity. When an elderly volunteer was absent and later returned struggling, his friends observed and were worried. However, as the professor notes, they deliberately didn't ask direct questions. Rather, they offered tea, cracked jokes, and tried to be subtly supportive while keeping normality. They were caring for each other pretty much as female friends would, but without ever naming the elephant in the room.
The Essential Question: Is Connection Need Words?
It's not everyone's preferred method of connecting, and it may not be yours. But if the true therapeutic value of friendship—the thing that combats loneliness and despair—is simply the awareness that someone is there enough to walk through life's challenges with you, must that invariably be put into words?
This discussion continues. Maybe the healthiest approach is to acknowledge that varied forms of friendship carry comparable worth, each satisfying the psychological needs of various individuals in unique powerful way.
